


Confiteor

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Angst, Conversations, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7199708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jed lashes out, what it takes for Mary to return before the ball.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confiteor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmadelosnardos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmadelosnardos/gifts).



Matron Brannan found her in the hallway, just a few steps away from Dr. Foster’s door. The quarantine sign still hung evenly, warning away the curious, the compassionate, and the conniving from the man within and his contagion. Mary’s head ached with the tears she had shed and those that she hadn’t, the burn of them in her face, her cheeks. The salt choked her. Perhaps she had been more honest than she knew; somehow, his illness had passed to her, leaving him with a look she had never seen before on his face—recognition, shame, even contrition and the reflection of her pain. The thoughts were slow in her head and she was slow, too slow to dash the tears away or deflect Matron Brannan’s question.

“What’s he said, now?” Matron always had the look of someone who had been rudely interrupted, even when Mary found her dozing in the warm afternoon sun, her worn hands folded in her lap. Mary had been surprised to notice the delicacy of those hands, the slender fingers, the lavendar tracing of the veins. Matron’s nails were neatly trimmed and clean, only the index finger yellowed a little by the tobacco she smoked on bad nights when the wards were too loud or too quiet.

“He, I—whatever do you mean, Matron?” Mary answered, fumbling for words, for the pocket handkerchief she had given away before nine o’clock, to join her hands and feel the fingers now bare of Gustav’s ring.

“Really, Nurse Phinney? Do we need to go about this like the officers do, a lengthy fol-de-rol of questions back and forth, thrust and parry? We are women, we have work to attend to,” Matron replied, her tone dry but with an undertone of consolation.

“I am afraid I cannot answer your question, Matron. I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Mary attempted. She was undercut by the hitching breath she involuntarily drew. And by way her hand moved to cover her heart where it beat, implacably, steadily alive though she might rue it, under the calico bodice and pinafore.

“Well, then, I’ll explain for you, shall I? To think, a poor old woman with barely any schooling must teach the lady baroness who keeps Sir Isaac Newton and Spenser on her bedside table. You’ve been tending Dr. Foster for his illness, which has worsened considerably I hear, so that only you may come and go. I’ve found you just outside his door, clearly breaking your heart over somesuch and knowing him, he must have found a way to hurt you the best he could with his sharp tongue. That’s his way and it works well enough for Hale and Hastings, their souls have leather hides, but he needn’t have turned on you, that’d hurt you worse than him laying hands on you. That’s not his way, pity Nan Hastings hasn’t quite come to grasp it, but he’d be far gone if he tried to touch you and I think you’d end up comforting him then-- even if you shouldn’t if he’d acted the lecher,” Matron explained, clearly and methodically, like Mary’s former mathematics tutor Dr. Harris detailing a proof. She shared his same expression at the conclusion, the look that said now Mary must prove herself equal to the task.

“Dr. Foster… forgot himself, he said things that I should never have listened to, I erred,” Mary said.

“You might as well tell me what the blasted man said to make you cry your eyes out in the hallway. The Winslow boy died in your arms yesterday, begging for his mother as he choked on his own blood, and I didn’t see any tears then. Out with it, I haven’t all day,” Matron replied briskly.

“He said, he said that my help might hurt him, that I only enjoy his misery, that… I am only here to assuage my guilt over failing my husband, that I am a nurse because I am a failure, I could only fail him,” Mary said, low, shamed to repeat it and bracing herself for Matron’s sharp retort.

“Well, he’s got it partly right, then. Is that what troubled you? Or was it that he recognized it, eh?” Matron replied. She appeared to be considering Mary’s response with interest but without any undue distress or glee.

“What?—partly right?” Mary blurted.

“Only a man would think he’s the first to see something and then have to announce it from the rooftops, Jed Foster louder and bolder than anyone else, as ever. Of course, you are here because you feel guilty and lost—what else could keep you here, in this place, with these people when you’ve a family at home? I see the letters that come and go from Boston. I hardly think you’re another Dr. Blackwell, trying to learn your profession on the sly from Hale and Foster. None of us are here because it’s a happy place or because we’re angels sent by God. Lord, even the nuns spend the nights on their knees, repenting God knows what till all hours,” Matron said. She took a step closer to Mary and reached out her hand, touched her on the forearm. “Nurse Mary, you’re a good woman and anyone can see it. Even that ungrateful wretch in there whose tea you brew and slops you clear, who calls for you in the night and how quickly you fly to him! He’s a man, dear, you and I know what that means,” she said with finality but Mary was unready to end the conversation. What other insight would Matron share? She raised her eyebrows in a question.

“So you want me to say it? Men don’t suffer like we do—they holler and cry, they curse and blame and do their best to find something else, someone else to shove their pain off to. It’s usually their mother or their wife, the woman they know will keep by their side. They aren’t subjected to the… limits a woman has, they don’t know what we know. How you must tend your pain yourself, lest you injure another with it. You know—you know how you managed when your man died and I think he wasn’t the only one you lost. Your mother maybe,” Mary nodded, “And I think, a little ‘un too by chance,” and here Mary only drew in a breath and held herself very still. Matron patted her arm.

“You’ve suffered, Mary von Olnhausen, for that’s your proper name, a proper widow’s name, and you know the way of it. That man in there, he’s lost without you and he knows it. He’s scared enough to piss his pants you won’t come sometime when he calls, so he must shout and curse and find your greatest fear and press on it, to see if he may drive you away… Come now, he’s not said anything you haven’t already thought and prayed over, it’s no more true or false for him saying it. The part I can’t quite decide upon is whether he’ll find his way. I’d like to think he might, he’s a taking lad for all his bluster and whip-smart. I think you’ll know he’s regaining his faculties if he finds a way to make amends to you, but he’s such a proud man, you may have to listen hard to hear his mea culpa. Now, then, you’ll do better for a cup of tea and so will I. Nan’s not about now, so you’re spared her vinegar tongue at least a little while,” Matron said and started leading Mary down the hallway. There was no sound from Jedediah’s room, only the sound of their footsteps on the wooden floor and the little shush-shush of their dragging hems.

Later, with the echo of Matron’s sound commentary in her mind, it was not so difficult to return coolly to his room and speak with him. Even later, Mary did not have to listen hard at all to hear his apology. She thought she knew what it meant that he spoke the words clearly and did not duck his head or only accede to her request he eat and drink well. She reflected Matron had probably already known how it would soothe them both, his Confiteor made to her, his voice like myrrh, with its wealth of comfort.

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended to be a drabble, but as usual, it grew a little longer. I was hoping to make it short, if not entirely sweet, for a very busy reader. I had recently re-watched E4 and thought there was something missing between the scene where Jed lashes out at Mary and her calm return before the ball. This is what I imagined could bridge the two and-- more Matron!
> 
> The Confiteor is the Latin prayer of contrition which includes "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."


End file.
